


a wolf's viper

by jackgyeoms



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: A lot of Stark family love in this fic, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 19:17:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9005452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jackgyeoms/pseuds/jackgyeoms
Summary: He watches her across the tiltyard, his dark eyes revealing something far too tempting to ignore.
Lyanna has never been one to deny herself.
Her icy stare promises a challenge should he wish to accept it.
Of course, Oberyn does.





	

**Author's Note:**

> unbeta'd so all mistakes are my own.

 

He watches her across the tiltyard, his dark eyes revealing something far too tempting to ignore.

Lyanna has never been one to deny herself.

Her icy stare promises a challenge should he wish to accept it.

Of course, Oberyn does.

She tells him that she is to be wed with a bitter twist to her lips. He knows, because the Lord hasn’t been able to keep quiet about the Northern beauty that is to be his bride. Baratheon speaks as if she is a prize, and Oberyn has realised how idiotic the man truly is if he believes the she-wolf would be his.

She belongs to no one but herself, and Oberyn, for a brief moment, was permitted to enjoy her.

He tells her that they cannot have more than this. She presses her hands to his cheeks and laughs in his face.

Her legs wound around his hips, her dress hitched up around her waist, she says, “You think you can please me enough to want more?”

He barks his laughter, caught by surprise. His hands are on her thighs, stroke the flesh there and feeling the way that she trembles against him. She bites her bottom lip and looks up at him beneath her eyelashes. Cold and grey, like how he imagined the North.

“I can guarantee,” he assures, and gets about proving his honesty.

-

Her belly swells and she doesn’t dare speak the name of the man that caused it.

Oh, they fight her. Her father has a cold fury, whilst Brandon burns hot. Ned looks at her with calculating eyes as if he can get the truth from her if he stares long enough. Benjen is the only one who doesn’t ask, and that’s because he already knows and in a pact held sacred by the bonds of siblings, he will not breathe a word.

Lyanna is stubborn when she wants to be and now, she is steadfast in her silence.

“Did he force himself upon you?” Brandon asks, and the look in his eyes doesn’t tell her which answer he wishes for her to give.

But she is honest: “He took what I was willing to give, and allowed me the same.”

She thinks the reason for her brother’s ire is offense on her own account – he thinks her still a child and he, the brave protector, that must fight for her honour.

“Do you understand what you have done?” Rickard demands an answer in a harsh whisper.

Her father loves her dearly but now he thinks only of the consequences - the tarnishing of a family name and the Lord in the Stormlands whose Lady she was supposed to be. Supposed to, because he will never allow it now. (When he announces the end of the engagement, stories spread about how the whole of the South could hear the Baratheon Lord’s anguish. Lyanna would call it heartbreak if she believed his heart had anything to do with his anger.)

She straightens her back and tells him that she regrets nothing that has led her to this moment.

That’s a lie, of course. Her father doesn’t trust her anymore. Her brothers hold her at an arm’s length. She regrets that. But at night, when she gets to put her hand to her slowly expanding stomach, feels the life that is growing there and remembers soft lips that tasted of Dornish wine, dark flesh so warm against her own and that one brief moment that represented true freedom.

Freedom – to her, that would always be worth it.

-

Lyanna doesn’t write him but he doesn’t expect her to.

He thinks of her fondly – the beautiful, quick-witted she-wolf who bared her teeth at the viper and took him for her own, at least for a time. But he has no illusions of what his future holds and, even if he may long for it, there will be no Northern lady in his bed. At least, not the one that he wants there to be.

So he moves on, marks Harrenhal and Lyanna as something wondrous and lucky in his past and doesn’t look back.

He trains Obara to use his spear as he promised before he left his home weeks before.

He tells Nymeria stories that she’s heard a thousand times before, and introduces her to the new ones he discovered at the Citadel.

He holds little Tyene hands as she paddles in the pools in the Water Gardens, smiles as she splashes and giggles and doesn’t care that his clothes are getting damp.

He gains a daughter. Always a daughter. Sweet Sarella. Her mother is from the Summer Isles, but every part of her is of Dorne.

Months past, and his sister writes him of the news of the court. _My husband’s cousin is in a righteous fury – apparently, his betrothed has found herself heavy with a child that does not belong to him. Uncle Lewyn tells me that you spent some time in the company of Lady Stark – do you have something to tell me brother mine?_

Oberyn would feel offended if it weren’t for the fact that Elia had always known him so well. He takes the letter straight from his rooms to his brother’s office, and presents it to him. Doran reads, and curses, and looks up at his younger brother with tired eyes. Strangely enough, it’s a look that Oberyn is used to being on the receiving end of.

“What do you intend to do?” he asks, because Doran knows there is no point in asking _why_ or _what were you thinking_.

Oberyn answers, “I would give my child a name.”

Doran’s lips curl, but whether it’s in amusement or ire, Oberyn isn’t too sure. “And their mother?”

“She has a name,” he says, “But she can share mine, if she wishes.”

-

The missive from Dorne comes when Lyanna has been carrying her babe for eight months. Maester Luwin says that within the month, the Snow baby will be born. She corrects him every time – _because her son is a Stark_.

“A Martell child,” her father states from the door way, and she stills. She doesn’t confirm or deny, but she doesn’t think she needs to. She watches and waits.

They have not spoken much since the realisation of her pregnancy, and what is spoken tends to come from anger and betrayal. The last time had been in her fifth month when Rickard had discussed the possibility of fostering her babe with the Umbers or Mormonts. Lyanna had told him with a snarl that if they dare take her child from her that she would put a dagger in their backs.

Ned reminded them, “A she-wolf will protect her cub.”

Her hand hovers over her stomach. _Yes, a she-wolf will._

“My son is a Stark,” she echoes the mantra.

“But his father is a Martell,” Rickard persists. He is clutching the letter in his hands, and presents it to her, “This arrived at first light. It’s in the Viper’s hand.”

Lyanna’s eyes dart towards it. She has thought about it, writing to Oberyn. She couldn’t quite say why she didn’t. When she looks back, her father looks so tired and Lyanna has to swallow the guilt she feels.

“He’ll be here within the fortnight,” he tells her lowly.

She doesn’t speak up until her father is about to leave, “I won’t let him take my son.”

Rickard stares at her for a long time, watches the hand that she strokes across her bump and says, “He will need an army to succeed.”

This is the closest that the two have come to civility in an age.

-

Oberyn arrives at Winterfell a week after the baby is born. A boy – just like Lyanna said all along, Benjen tells him. His first son.

His skin is brown and soft, blessed by the sun like Oberyn’s; his hair is dark and curly, wild like Lyanna’s. He looks like a Martell in the same way that his daughters do, but his eyes. Iron grey, like his mother. Ten fingers, ten toes. A wonderful set of lungs.

He is perfect.

Lyanna has named him Torrhen, a true Northern name. He seems too small for such a legacy.

Oberyn holds his son in his arms, warm and squirming and smelling so new. His heart pounds and grows to fit him comfortably amongst his sisters. Lyanna sits and watches him the entire time, as if she believes he will drop him. Or, perhaps, steal Torrhen away.

“Why did you not tell me?” he asks her.

She replies, “Why did you come for him?”

“He’s my son,” Oberyn answers and she adds, “And mine.”

The baby squawks and croaks his cries to announce his hunger. Oberyn watches with avid interest at the skill in which Lyanna removes their son from his arms and sets him to her breast.

“Come with me,” he says.

She arches an eyebrow at him. “To Dorne?”

He nods his head.

“And do what?”

“ _Live._ ”

-

When Lyanna comes to her father and tells him of her intentions, he doesn’t seem surprised, more resigned. He sighs, bobs his head once, and presses a kiss to the centre of her forehead, just like he used to do when she was a girl.

“Dorne is the best place for you,” he tells her quietly.

“I’m sorry,” she says. _I’m sorry that I am leaving. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I wasn’t what you wanted from a daughter._ She means it, even if she feels very little regret.

“You are my daughter and I want your happiness,” Rickard assures her, and Lyanna hasn’t realised how terrified she is that, that isn’t true. “Will he give you that?”

Her lips twist upwards a little. “He will try.”

-

Oberyn doesn’t ask Lord Stark for Lyanna’s hand. Brandon asks him why.

The heir, he thinks, is his hardest won ally. Lord Rickard loves his daughter in the end. Benjen has always looked up to his sister, and is awed by the stories the Red Viper has told him. Ned is taken by a baby’s breath and his sister’s soft smiles. Brandon though looks at him with harsh eyes and thinks of him only as the man who took advantage of his sister.

He asks him why, and watches as if he’s just waiting for an excuse to lurch across the table and end him.

Oberyn has Torrhen set in his lap, his little hands hooked around his father’s fingers. He watches his son as he answers.

“Your sister is not something to be traded or brought,” he says, “If I dared to ask your father for permission, she would gut me for the disrespect I’ve shown her.”

A long pause in which Torrhen shrieks happily and sways towards his uncle. Brandon smiles down at him, warm, and presses the pad of his finger to the boy’s nose. It just makes Torrhen laugh more.

“You’re a bastard, and my sister deserves better than you,” Brandon states, blunt and honest. “But, more than anyone, perhaps you can give her what she wants.”

They both know what she wants. Choice. Freedom.

-

Ned is going to be a great father, Lyanna thinks warmly, smiling at the sight before her.

Although he had tried not to, Ned had taken a step back from her over the course of her pregnancy and Lyanna felt the fact that their relationship wasn’t the same as it once was. Although it saddened and angered her in equal measure, she understood. It is a part of his nature. Ned is all about honour and he couldn’t quite wrap his head around the idea of not doing your duty. But once Torrhen had been born, and the babe placed in his arms, the title of uncle now upon him, he had softened.

“You wouldn’t have been happy with Robert, would you?” he said to her in the first couple of days after Torrhen’s birth, when she can do little more than cradle her son and pace the length of her room.

She hadn’t answered him, but from the way that he had smiled, he didn’t need one.

He visits her often now, and each time, holds his nephew in his arms like one would hold a precious jewel. He looks upon the boy with an awed gaze, and rocks him whilst muttering the tales of the North. Torrhen is too young to understand them, but he always looks up enraptured by his uncle’s voice.

Yes, Ned is going to be a great father.

“You’ll keep telling him these stories when you go?” he questions, and the look he receives is most unimpressed. It makes him smile, abet sheepishly.

“It won’t sound the same when they’re not coming from you,” Lyanna tells him, “But I will endeavour. He may grow up within Dorne, but he is of the North and I won’t let him forget it.”

-

Oberyn is breaking his fast with the Starks, Torrhen in his arms, when they are informed that Lord Baratheon and his party are within hours of Winterfell. It sets a feeling of unease into the previously contented space, and Torrhen whimpers. He has to rock him, hum an absent tune under his breathe to calm the babe down.

“We weren’t warned,” Brandon states, frowning unhappily.

“What do you think he wants?” Benjen asks, but eyes flicker to Lyanna, who doesn’t even look up under their weight.

Oberyn scowls. “Baratheon is reckless.”

“He loves her,” Ned argues.

Lyanna corrects him, “He believes himself in love.”

Rickard pushes his plate aside, sadly aware that his peaceful morning has been cut short, and calls for rooms to be readied to receive their unexpected guests. He’ll need to warn the kitchens, and the maids, the stable boys. Already he can feel an ache behind his eyes. As he watches the small family – his daughter, her son and their Viper – he cannot help feeling that it will only get worse.

He is certain that it will by the time the party gets to Winterfell’s gates. He stands to greet the approaching Lord, with Brandon on his right, Ned, then Benjen. Lyanna stands beside Oberyn with their son on her hip. Torrhen seems unhappy to be stood out in the cold, keeps making these snuffling noises and pushing his face into his mother’s furs. His father doesn’t look too pleased either, glares into the distance and waits.

He doesn’t have his spear, but Rickard doesn’t doubt that the man is just as deadly without.

When Robert barrels into the courtyard, Lyanna forces Torrhen into Oberyn’s arms and they all know the man will not fight with his son in his arms.

Robert dismounts and stalks forward, barely makes the turn to greet the Lord of Winterfell as is expected of him before he approaches any others. His grip is harsh and rough, his anger making him strong.

Anger making him stupid, Oberyn spits.

His words are polite, but stilted until they reach Oberyn. Then, Oberyn sees the flash of violence in his eyes. “Lord Martell.” He says it like one would hiss _snake_.

It’s disrespectful and nothing like how two Lords are expected to greet each other. Beyond, Oberyn can see Lord Rickard pinching the bridge of his nose and for his sake, he forces a smile. “Lord Baratheon.”

Up the line, Ned takes a small step, a frown marring his features. “Robert…”

He is ignored. Robert moves like he’s going to throw a punch, like he doesn’t care who sees, and Oberyn looks as if he wants that to happen more than anything. Lyanna steps between them, smiles pleasantly.

“Lord Robert.”

He relaxes, if just. “Lady Lyanna. It’s good to see you so well.”

“You shouldn’t show up unannounced,” she reminds him carefully, for even with her, he was unpredictable. “It’s impolite. My household was unprepared, and therefore unable to give you a room of adequate comfort for your station.”

In those words, Oberyn realises how long Lyanna has played the part of her mother, the Lady of Winterfell. He’s reminded of his sister and of his brother in equal measure.

Robert offers a stiff apology to Lord Rickard, who ducks his head in a bow to signify his acceptance. “I came to speak to you, both of you,” his eyes flicker between Lyanna and her father.

Oberyn knows exactly what he is here for, but he plays the fool. “About what, may I ask?”

He can see the pulsing of irritating in the Lord’s temple, and there is this feeling of warm satisfaction that curls in the pit of his stomach that he can get the man to react so. Experience has taught him that, in a fight, anger can mean the difference between a win and a loss. He wonders if his son can feel the tension in his arms, alert and ready, because he begins to squirm unhappily.

Torrhen whimpers and bubbles into a cry, and Lyanna puts her hand on his back, hushes him softly. The boy curls into his father, blinks at his mother with big intense eyes.

Robert watches it all with a dark look. “The bastard is still here.”

Lyanna is still, and when she speaks, her voice is deadly calm. “Where else would my son be?”

He doesn’t answer her, and it’s in that moment that Oberyn concedes he may not be as stupid as originally believed.

He doesn’t go to the discussion between the Lords of Storm’s End and Winterfell, although he desperately wants to. Lyanna gives him watch of their boy, and leaves her brothers to guard him. Ned might not be as formidable as his brother, but he could put up a good fight, and Lyanna would never forgive him if he broke her baby brother.

So he waits, and tends to Torrhen as he is expected to.

-

Robert doesn’t leave, and her father says that relations are already tenuous without sending him away. Although it frustrates her to no end, she understands. So he stays, and watches her and gets too close to her son, and drives Oberyn to the point of idiotic recklessness.

“He takes liberties,” he hisses, and Lyanna must remind him pointedly that “so did you.”

She is in the middle of preparing for the journey to Dorne when word is brought to her by a visibly shaken maid – Tera, Lyanna recalls – that Prince Oberyn is been seen to by the maester.

In his quarters, Oberyn is complaining loudly about not needing help, and Maester Luwin is looking all sorts of unimpressed. It is a look he wears often, when faced with the likes of Brandon and Lyanna, who are too stubborn to admit they are not invincible. They look at her when she pushes the door open. Luwin bows to her and murmurs a pleasant greeting. Oberyn rolls his jaw and avoids her gaze.

So, that’s how it shall be.

“How is Prince Oberyn?” she asks, and Luwin replies, “No worse off than Lord Baratheon. He needs his hand tended to, or it will get infected.”

“My hand is fine,” Oberyn insists, but he is ignored. Lyanna steps closer, and asks if the maester does not mind her taking over for him. He concedes with very little prompting, points out that there is a stubborn Lord with a break that needs tending to, and makes an exit.

Luwin doesn’t need to walk her through the care required. She has had to do this more than enough times. She does however, press too harshly upon the open wounds, making Oberyn wince and curse and yank his hand away.

“Don’t be a child,” she scolds, and pulls the limb back.

“This is unnecessary,” Oberyn states once more.

Lyanna responds, “I know. Your hand is fine.” She cleans the blood from the cloth and presses down hard onto the cuts on his knuckles again.

He grits his teeth, and watches the side of her face before saying, “You are displeased with me.”

“Of course not,” Lyanna shakes her head, and smiles with false pleasantness, “I want you to war within my home, my father’s house. It is to be expected after all - it is the way of men after all.”

“He wouldn’t leave well enough alone,” Oberyn persists in defending himself. “He believes himself entitled and- “

“He does it to get a rise from you,” she reminds him sharply. Oberyn quietens, but he’s still tense, muscles in his arms taunt and shoulders hunched. He’s still ready to lash out. She gentles her movements, only just. “And you give him what he wants.”

“He’s an arse,” Oberyn mutters.

Lyanna hums agreement.

“He should not talk about you or our son is such a way,” he continues.

Again, she agrees.

“I hope his nose hurts,” Oberyn says darkly.

“I’m sure you broke it good and true,” Lyanna mocks, and he glares at her. She stares back.

After a moment, he says, “I will not apologise to him.”

“I would not expect you to,” Lyanna replies, “I would however expect you to apologise to my father for fighting within his borders, and to the poor squires who tried to separate you two.”

He does just that, bows his head to both lord and peasant and gives his apologises. The squires appear startled, accept it with a stammer. Her father looks both amused and frustrated in equal measure, but promises to forgive and forget should Oberyn help repair the fence to the training yard that he helped destroy.

He does it without complaint, and Lyanna watches him work, a small smile on her lips. He chose not to wear his furs and she is greeted with the pleasure of watching his back muscles shifting under his shirt. He preens and poises when he realises she’s there, means that he takes more time than he should have, but Lyanna cannot bring herself to complain in this insistence.

-

It is Ned that convinces Robert to return home, but he tries, just once, to convince her to go with him.

“You deserve better,” he says. To someone else, he might be begging. To her, he’s expressing his belief that he knows her mind better.

She replies, “So does your daughter.”

He doesn’t speak to her after that, and leaves at the following day’s dawn. Lyanna watches the figures on horseback disappear over the horizon, and for a moment, thinks of what it might have been like if she had been riding beside him, destined to become the Lady of Storm’s End.

Torrhen makes a noise of distress when he wakes up beside her, and she wipes those thoughts from her mind. Her life is different now, and it wouldn’t do well to dwell on what ifs, especially those she finds immensely depressing.

-

They leave after Benjen’s birthday celebrations. Coming of age is something of a milestone, and Lyanna would not miss the banquet thrown in his honour. The Stark bannermen crowd the halls, fill up every free room within Winterfell, and every tavern and inn in the surrounding area. It reminds Lyanna of times long past, and despite it being for her brother, it feels like the goodbye that she needs.

She brings Torrhen too, because though he won’t remember, she wants him to be able to experience this at least once.

“Do the Southron celebrate like this?” she asks Oberyn. He dines at the head table, angled towards his lady and his child, and takes in the room over the rim of his goblet. Over to the right, Great Jon has encouraged both Rickard and Benjen into a drinking competition with some of the lesser Lords, and his jeers of encouragement can be heard over all the voices and music in the hall.

Rickard slams his cup down on the table, and a cheer breaks out. Oberyn eyes the group and comments, “The Southron wish they do.”

Lyanna’s laughter can be heard by the people in the back, and Torrhen laughs with his mother, although he doesn’t understand why.

Time passes, and she disappears to put a sleepy Torrhen down to bed. When she returns, she moves immediately into the mass of bodies and dances. She dances with everyone who is willing to, is lifted and spun, and expresses her joy with laughter.

Oberyn steps in after an uncoordinated jig with Ned, the man flushed with drink and that making him willing to break that appropriate exterior he wears. She pulls him close, and he lets her. It’s the first dance together of many in their lives.

-

Someone, a Mormont, Lyanna suspects or maybe a Karstark, but she cannot tell just by looking at the masses around them, starts a debate over who grows the best fighters. There is an overwhelming consensus that the North wins out, but Oberyn must defend his home, and soon, they want proof of prowess.

“Come on _Viper_ ,” Brandon draws the name out, smiling as he teases. He’s swaying slightly from the amount he’s drunk, but it doesn’t make him seem any less intimidating. “Show me how the South fights.”

Oberyn arches an eyebrow before downing his drink and standing, to the cheers and shouts of the Northerns around him. Lyanna has learnt quickly that Oberyn isn’t a man who steps down from a battle.

The two men circle each other, move into position and lock arms. Lyanna laughs and claps along to the music, and keeps her eyes on her Southerner.

When everyone is distracted by the display of strength of North and South, Benjen sits beside her and tells her in a low whisper that he’s thinking of taking the black.

She squeezes his hand and asks him, “will it make you happy?”

When he nods his head, hesitantly and then with more confidence, she smiles and presses a kiss to his forehead. She won’t speak on it again, gets distracted by shouts over who won – neither men will concede that they lost - but when he announces his intentions days later, she will present him with a dagger. In the blade, their house words have been engraved.

“Just so you won’t forget who you are,” she says.

He’ll carry it until the day he dies in the icy winds.

-

She takes a sapling from the Godswood when she leaves. It’s a gift from Benjen – “So you won’t forget either” – and she holds it, blinking back tears. She is truly leaving, to go to a place that she has never known. Oberyn has tried his best to give her some idea of what would be her new home, but he knows that Dorne will never be like Winterfell, not to her. So he sits and allows her to mourn her change.

He shakes Rickard’s hand and expresses gratitude for what he has allowed to happen, despite the trouble that has followed.

He promises Brandon that he will protect his little sister.

He reassures Ned that Lya will happy.

He extends invitations to Benjen to visit.

He holds onto his son, already slumbering, and waits whilst Lyanna clings far too tightly to her family.

She doesn’t cry until they reach the first inn, and then he holds onto her and mutters reassurances in Rhoynish into her hair.

-

The Sand Snakes are suspicious of her when they first meet, a woman from a world so different from the one they know, and Lyanna makes it her goal to bridge the gap between them. It is lucky though that Torrhen falls quickly within their ranks – he is their brother, and for all the Northern blood in him, he looks every bit like his father. From there, it’s easy for them to care for his mother.

Lyanna holds Sarella like a mother should, and the little girl smiles so prettily.

She introduces Nymeria to her Northern stallion, and takes her on journeys as far as she can – she says that she’s learning her new home and needs a guide, and Nym falls over herself to tell her everything she knows.

She listens to Tyene’s stories, each grander than the last, and plaits her hair back the way that she likes, _much better than when papa does it_.

She holds her own against Obara, who hisses and spits venom as much as her father. She’s the oldest but has only been with her father for four years. She feels like she has a lot to prove, and Lyanna can understand that. She does too, so she holds her sword, urges Obara to come at her and fights until her arms are heavy with lethargy.

They are charmed by her, just as she is charmed by them.

“They don’t need a mother,” Lyanna tells Oberyn once, “But I wouldn’t mind being theirs.”

-

In the end, they never marry. It is something of a scandal, one that prompts whispers and pitying eyes. They think Lady Lyanna too wilful, or Prince Oberyn too wild, and that this is a consequence from the Seven. Despite this, everyone in the Seven Kingdoms is aware that Prince Oberyn is Lady Lyanna’s. She gives him four sons, and two daughters, and a scar from his ear to his lips.

The story spreads that the Viper is disloyal and the scar is left as a reminder to him what happens should he bring home another bastard. Oberyn, however, would laugh and insist that _this is just foreplay_. Beside him, Lyanna would smirk.

To her children, she would say that their father needed to learn humility. To him, she would trace it with her finger tips and remember the time that she bested the Viper.

“It was a good battle,” Oberyn murmurs, warm hands splaying across her hips, rucking up her skirts and drawing her close to him. His nose nudges hers, and his breath fans her lips.

She digs her nails into his shirt, slides her legs between his. “It was.” And then she looks up, with a dangerous glint in his eyes, “Want to try again?”

“That’s how we got the twins,” Oberyn reminds her, but he knows that soon enough, he will reach for his spear and she for her sword; that she will fight with teeth and claws, a beautiful fury. He knows that she will pin him and ride him into submission. He knows he’ll allow her that.

After all, she might be his, but he is most definitely hers.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [hit me up on tumblr](http://gladers.co.vu)
> 
> feedback is appreciated!!


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